Temple
Scroll and Related Documents is the seventh and latest installment
in the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scroll Project, a series which
envisions ten volumes in all (contained in a total of twelve books, since
volumes 4 and 6 are divided into two books).

A
brief general introduction by James Charlesworth to what the Dead Sea Scrolls
are and why they are significant begins the volume, followed by the book proper
which treats five total manuscripts: 11Q19 (11QTemplea); 11Q20
(11QTempleb); 11Q21 (11QTemplec?); 4Q365a (4QTemplea?);
4Q524 (4QTempleb; 4QReworkedTorah). Treatment of each manuscript
begins with an introduction which is up-to-date with the state of scholarship,
consisting of matters from the features of the manuscript itself (e.g., the
material it is made of; length and width; scribal techniques; etc.), to the
date of the manuscript, its theology, etc. The presentation of the manuscript
itself is in diglot fashion. Each page has the Hebrew of the manuscript
presented on the left page and an English translation on the right page. The
author of the introduction, transcription, and translation for each manuscript
varies among the following: James H. Charlesworth, Henry W. Morisada Rietz,
Lawrence H. Schiffman, Andrew D. Gross, Michael C. Rand, J. Milgrom, M. T. Davis,
and A. de la Ronde van Kirk. The partial and full restorations
offered for each manuscript are bracketed according to typical text critical
practice, and a host of footnotes are given which compare the reading in this
edition with other Temple Scroll editions (Martínez; Qimron; Yadin).[1] These
notes also often provide parallels to the biblical text of the MTincluding
versional support when appropriateand occasionally cite relevant publications
on a textual issue. For the most part, the Hebrew text provided is in agreement
with Yadin and/or Qimron, but there are a number of instances where unique
readings are suggested. Unfortunately, no comprehensive list of such
divergences is given.

There
are two negative points to note for this volume. First, and inevitable, the book is already dated. It was published in August 2011, just one month
before the Israeli National Museum published high resolution photographs of the
manuscript online.[2]
Upon close inspection, one will find the presentation of the text in this
volume at odds with the current presentation of the online manuscript. For
instance, column 26 lacks the šḥṭ at the beginning of line 5, a
fragment originally placed there by Yadin.[3]
Furthermore, the fragment thought to attest to lines 34, which was placed at the
top of the column, is now displaced to a different location, and a new fragment
is placed at the top of the column. Needless to say, this volume's reconstruction
of column 26, along with the other editions, needs to be reevaluated. Moreover,
the updated placement of all of the fragments online need to be inspected
vis-à-vis their placement in the various Temple Scroll editions, in order to
assess whether or not any new placement online is valid. Again, this
shortcoming is not the fault of the volume itself, but an unfortunate reality
that needs to be pointed out.

Second,
I am concerned about the inclusion of a Temple Scroll Composite Text at the
end of the volume. This composite text consists of an amalgam of the various
witnesses to the Temple Scroll, to other texts (mainly biblical) that support
the restorations and to the scholars' conjectural restorations (p. 266
n.1). What is the purpose of this composite text and in what way is it useful
for students or scholars of the Temple Scroll? It seems to me that the
potential pitfalls of such a text outweigh any intended benefit. Consider, for
instance, column 2 of the composite text, a column only attested in 11Q19. That
which is visible for each line ranges from a few letters to a few words. Yet
the Hebrew text is reconstructed for the entire column nearly in full. Granted,
one can reconstruct from the visible letters the general biblical sequence
being recounted (i.e., Exod 34:10ff.); but, is it worthwhile to say more than that
about column 2 given the Temple Scroll's proclivity for textual
innovation? Additionally, the suspected biblical context of each manuscript,
along with the places where other Temple Scroll and Temple Scroll-like
manuscripts overlap with each other, are already given in the footnotes of each
manuscript treated in the volume. It seems to me that a better way forward is simply
to use the manuscript/transcription of each manuscript itself, rather than
using a non-existing text that likely attests to erroneous readings in numerous
places.

On
the positive side, the introduction to each manuscript in the volume is up-to-date
and written by experts in the field. This volume also is a welcome hybrid
between other editions of the Temple Scroll text. On the one hand, there are the
DJD and Yadin editions, which are thorough but bulky and cost-prohibitive. On
the other hand, there is the Dead Sea Scroll Study Edition,[4] which is
compact and economic but tenuous in its notes and comment. Then there is the Temple
Scroll and Related Documents: it is not as thorough as the DJD and Yadin
volumes, but quite substantial in its notes and comment when compared to the Dead
Sea Scroll Study Edition. It is not as economic as the Dead Sea Scroll
Study Edition, but it is more economic than the DJD and Yadin editions. For
these reasons, we used the Temple Scroll and Related Documents as the edition
of choice at Yale for our Ancient Judaism Seminar on the Temple Scroll, and it
served its purpose. For these reasons, I commend this edition to all those interested in the study
of the Temple Scroll (and related manuscripts), but only as a starting point and in
consultation with the online images of the scroll.